literature

When Quimby’s opened up a few weeks back just off the Metropolitan stop, Williamsburg gained another hip little bookstore in an area where it sometimes feels like culture is on the way out. Thankfully, Quimby’s is the real deal, even if it’s a revival of a Chicago institution first opened by Steven Svymbersky in the ’90s.

But wait a minute, isn’t there already a specialty book store on the block? Yeah, there most definitely is: Desert Island, probably the best comic bookstore in the city, and maybe one of the most glorious shops dedicated solely to graphic novels and arty comics.

This week, we present a series of longer pieces unraveling the histories of storied buildings.

(Photo: Shanna Ravindra for NY Mag)

The entrance to the Nuyorican Poets Café dissolves into a mural of faceless men standing in line, all dressed in white-hat-and-suit ensembles, hands stuffed into their pockets. The painting is based on a black and white photograph from the 1980s of spectators waiting outside the Café. To the right of the entrance is a detailed portrait of the Rev. Pedro Pietri, one of the Nuyorican’s founding poets. The murals replicate the artistry of what goes on inside the walls.

The super stylish Hyperallergic, the online magazine for all your arts-and-culture-related thinkpiece needs, will come to life tonight at Housing Works for the second time as three Hyperallergic writers (Seph Rodney, Claire Voon, and Carey Dunne), as well as three editors (Elisa Wouk Almino, Jillian Steinhauer, and Hrag Vartanian) read from some of their pieces and bring your favorite self-proclaimed “Art Blogazine” to the masses.

James Andrew Miller in Conversation with Andrew Ross Sorkin and David O’ConnorAugust 9, 7 pm at Barnes and Noble-Union Square
With his new book Journalist James Andrew Miller, who also moonlights as a media consultant, delves into the world of the Creative Artists Agency, a secretive conglomerate which controls the vast majority of the entertainment industry, whether it be music, television, or films. In Powerhouse: The Untold Story of Hollywood’s Creative Artists Agency, Miller explores the origins of the CAA and its rapid rise to power.

As ’90s “it” author JT Leroy once put it in a book title, the heart is deceitful above all things. But not as deceitful as LeRoy himself ended up being. Embraced as a hard-living, gender-bending literary wunderkind by everyone from Bruce Benderson to Bono, the troubled teen author was famously outed as a fabrication of Laura Albert, a somewhat less troubled 40-year-old woman. A new documentary about this bizarro episode in literary history, Author: The JT LeRoy Story, recently premiered at BAMcinemaFest– if you missed it there, Rooftop Films is offering another chance to see it, Aug. 18, with Albert and filmmaker Jeff Feuerzeig in attendance.

If Allen Ginsberg were still croaking around today, he would’ve just celebrated his 90th birthday. I can see it now– the old man and his expansive beard, its gnarls wafting gently at the rims of coke-bottle glasses. He’d invariably be rocking sandals (whatever to the people locking eye-to-fungi) while boy servants fan him with palm leaves, gently though, so he can still roll those double-sized fatty spliff-spliffs from pages ripped out of On the Road and intermittently flash people from underneath his dashiki. Inevitably, James Franco would be VJing a Howl ft. Grimes remix and everything, everything would be lost.

Left Bank Books employees Eric and Jess with their customers outside their storefront on its final Saturday, 3/12 at 4 p.m. (Photo: Nick McManus)

A few weeks back, the owners of Left Bank Books took to social media to announce that after “nearly 24 years in business” they’d be closing shop. “It’s a familiar story by now: the costs of maintaining a brick-and-mortar used and rare bookshop in Greenwich Village are simply no longer tenable,” read the post. It was signed “the Freaks of LBB.”

Authors Helen McClory and Susan Rukeyser will present their respective debut books On the Edges of Vision and Not on Fire, Only Dying. McClory’s collection of short stories sounds, well… pretty intense. The synopsis: “Whether telling of a boy cyclops or a pretty dead girl, drowned sailors or the devil himself, each story draws the reader towards not bleakness but a tale half-told, a truth half-true: that the monster is human, and only wants to reach out and take you by the hand.” (Eek!) Rukeyser’s novel follows drug dealer Marko in his attempt to help troubled recluse Lola find her kidnapped newborn baby. Everyone assumes the child is just one of her delusions except the devoted, chivalrous ex-con, who takes it upon himself to come up with answers. Presented in conversation with Volume 1 Brooklyn editor Tobias Carroll.

Rachel B. Glaser’s debut novel Paulina & Fran is celebrating its launch with readings from the author and special guests Leopoldine Core (Veronica Bench) and Mark Leidner (The Angel in The Dream of Our Hangover: Aphorisms). The novel is described as “a story of friendship, art, sex and curly hair.” It’s Glaser’s first full length work of fiction, but she’s already an accomplished writer with a published short story collection and book of poetry; her work has appeared in the anthologies 30 Under 30 and New American Stories, and Nylon has cited her as one of the “Coolest Female Poets to Know Right Now.” The conversation will be led by author Elisa Albert (After Birth).

On Tuesday, Matt Nelson and Jacob Perkins, founders of Bushwick independent library and reading room Mellow Pages, announced on Facebook that their literary hangout, in its current form at least, will cease to exist at the end of the month. They’re making like many writers before them and saying later gator to New York City.

TuesdayFeel the need to commiserate about good times spent at neighborhood haunts of yore? Share poems, stories, monologues and memories about a New York City place you loved and lost at “A Ghost City Tour,” featuring Kathryn “K” Adisman, Alice Klugherz, Ron Kolm, Su Polo, Armand Ruhlman, Fred Simpson on drums and special guest Jill Rapaport. Reminisce over pizza and get a free beer at this 5th Street bar that’s happily survived to serve up some of the best Italian food in the East Village since 1991. March 24 at 7:30 p.m. Three of Cups Lounge, 83 First Avenue on the corner of East 5 Street.

Kristin Henderson reads a story with her son Griffin at a previous Brooklyn Book Fest (Photo: Meghan White)

Great news! Brooklyn Book Fest has now updated its website to include a comprehensive event calendar for the imminent 2014 fest, which means we at B+B are able to supplement our recent rundown of upcoming literary shindigs. Keep Reading »

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About B + B

Bedford + Bowery is where downtown Manhattan and north Brooklyn intersect. Produced by NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute in collaboration with New York magazine, B + B covers the East Village, Lower East Side, Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bushwick, and beyond. Want to contribute? Send a tip? E-mail the editor.